Microsoft sued for unclear message delivered through “Windows Vista Capable” stickers
April 3rd, 2007 Leave a comment Visited 31 times, 1 so far today
Microsoft sued for unclear message delivered through “Windows Vista Capable” stickers
Microsoft has been sued over their marketing practices. The company is charged with claims that they engaged in deceptive practices by letting PC makers promote computers as “Windows Vista Capable” despite the fact that the machines were not capable of supporting all the features of the recently launched Vista operating system.
This lawsuit has been filed on behalf of personal-computer buyer Dianne Kelley of Camano Island. The lawsuit claims that the machines being sold in the market carrying the “Windows Vista Capable” are essentially only capable of running the Windows Vista Home Basic edition which lacks support for the “Aero” interface along with other features.
Michael Rosenberger, one of the lawyers representing Kelley added: “All the ‘wow’ stuff that Microsoft is selling and marketing is present in (Windows Vista Home) Premium, but it’s not present in Basic.”
Linda Norman, a Microsoft associate general counsel responded in a statement: “We feel as a company we went beyond what we’ve ever done to try to educate people so that they understood and could make the right purchase decision.”
The complaint further states: “In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch — assuring consumers they were purchasing ‘Vista Capable’ machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as ‘Vista,’”.
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April 3rd, 2007 at 09:04 pm
Logic would say that a computer capable of running an OS would be just that: capable of running the OS. No one ever said that it could run the premium features of the OS (which was the point of the premium ready thing anyway)
April 4th, 2007 at 06:41 am
I agree with the customers just becaue it is stickered capable is only half the story. Many of my clients are unhappy even knowing that they only bought the minimal version, with only 512 of memory the first complaint is sluggish! I had a potential customer walk in today to ask if there was a way to remove the virus Vista? Additionally, why did MS make it only possible for customers who bought Ultimate a downgrade path to old XP? Now that is even more interesting as these machines supposedly are equiped for the higher versions of Vista yet the customers want an escape, MS should offer it to all of it victoms, or customers so they do not feel victomized. I have also had good experiences with Vista but just think that MS has to become more experience focused and sell an opperating system that works for all, automatically sensing or prompting users for the features they want, need, or are capable of running. Maybe it is time for the OS companies to take a lesson from some of its other competitors like MAC OS and many of the Linux systems. I wish the folks in Redmond would open there eyes, hears and brains and realize sell a good product at a reasonable price and reap the harves because if it does not cost a lot more people will buy and not try to rip off the product. Especially if it works well.
April 4th, 2007 at 11:22 am
“Logic would say that a computer capable of running an OS, would be capable of running the OS.”
Logic would also dictate, that a computer advertised as being capable of running an advertised OS, would be able to run the advertised version of the OS.
The problem isn’t that the computers can’t run the “Premium Features” of the OS. It is that the computers are not capable of running the advertised features of the OS.
Vista Premium is THE Vista OS for home users. Vista Basic is NOT Vista to the home user. It is a “Vista Compatible” OS, but it is not Vista. Because Vista is WOW, and WOW is Aero/Clarity.
Heck, even I don’t know what all of those “Vista Ready” stickers mean. Vista Capable, Vista Ready? What is the difference exactly? Fully Capable, and just barely ready, or just barely Capable, and fully Ready?
So which supports the Aero interface? I have to check a wiki just to figure that out.